


Haunted

by Starofwinter



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Dissociation, Gen, Post-Episode: s04e07 Darkness on Umbara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 00:19:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13178319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starofwinter/pseuds/Starofwinter
Summary: Rex thinks that Fives is a better man than anyone he’s ever known as he argues for the life of the brother who’d ordered his execution not forty-eight hours before.





	Haunted

**Author's Note:**

> Semi-prequel to [Overdose.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11919849)

“Is there  _ anything _ we can do?” Fives asks, voice breaking in his desperation, “Come on, Rex, you know this isn’t fair!”  

Rex thinks that Fives is a better man than anyone he’s ever known as he argues for the life of the brother who’d ordered his execution not forty-eight hours before.  “General Skywalker is arguing for it as we speak, but the fact of the matter is, Dogma killed a Jedi.  That’s treason,” he says, and he hates the formality in his voice.  He feels so detached from everything, and he doesn’t know why.

“That’s  _ osik _ , and you know it.”  Fives snarls the words, stepping into Rex’s space.  “Krell was a hutuun’la demagolka-”

“ _ Fives _ ,” Rex snaps, and the ARC glares at him, “ _ Lock it down _ .  I do know that, but there’s  _ nothing we can do. _ ”  

Fives snorts.  “Sure there is.  We can cut Dogma loose, put him in a pod and tell them he escaped-”

“And then what, Fives?  You think any of us can survive on our own, alone, no credits, keeping his head down and looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life?  And that’s  _ if _ they don’t hunt him down for killing a Jedi.  So  _ no _ , there is nothing we can do for him.”  And that thought will haunt Rex for the rest of his life.  

“Bantha shit,” Fives snaps and shoves past Rex, slamming a shoulder into his chest as he passes.  Rex doesn’t say anything, even if he should pull Fives up for it, but fuck, he doesn’t have the energy to do it right now.  He feels scraped raw and bleeding, even if there wasn’t a single scratch on him.  Besides, it isn’t like Fives is saying anything he isn’t already thinking.

Sleep doesn’t claim him easily, and when it does, so do the night terrors.  He wakes himself up screaming, as the ghosts of the men they’d lost demand reparation for their deaths.  

Instead of trying to go back to sleep, he reaches for the stims.  Better to stay awake for a while, talk with Skywalker, and see if he’d had any luck.  Maybe by the time they wear off, he’ll have shoved the ghosts down deep enough in his skull that they can’t get out to haunt him.


End file.
